How To Lose an Election (and I'm a bit of an expert)

I think the first thing to do is to acknowledge that standing as RISE in the Scottish Elections we did extremely poorly, but probably no better or worse that we would have done standing as the SSP, and any criticism of RISE here is only because it was as RISE that we stood. Standing as the SSP, I don't think we would have done much better because we would have run a very similar campaign using almost exactly the same methods as RISE did and achieved virtually the same outcome. There was very little new in either the approach or the policies we relied on to persuade the voters into our camp.

On the positive side the SSP has learned a lot about the quality of our social media offerings. Rise material was incomparably better than anything we have ever produced and we fail to learn from that at our peril. The medium was exploited about as well as it could have been. Would that I could say the same for the message.

As the left, whichever name we campaign under, we keep making the same mistake. We campaign on the things that are important to us rather than what is important to the voters.

Looking at the headline policies on the main RISE leaflet,we had we were asking for a second referendum at a time of our choosing. No doubt we were looking for disaffected SNP supporters, but there are very few disaffected SNP voters. Their new members haven't had time to become disaffected and their 'old guard' wouldn't go anywhere else at any price. Add to that the fact that 55% of the electorate had already rejected independence very recently and we were always backing a loser with this as a headline policy. We were competing on someone else's turf and they had it fenced off very well. The problem is that we knew all of this and still headlined the policy.

We said no to cuts and save local services. This is a message we were sharing with other parties. There was nothing distinctive about our approach. It didn't tell voters clearly enough where the money was to come from and that was where our distinction lay. We were asking them to take us on trust when they didn't even know us.

We were saying we would scrap the hated council tax and that we had a plan for an alternative that makes the rich pay. But council tax has been frozen for years and voters, especially those on fixed incomes like pensioners value predictability. We didn't define 'the rich' so many would assume we meant them because they regard the poor as being those on benefits and see themselves as being rich by comparison. We were asking them again to trust us without really knowing who we were.

We said we would de-criminalise marijuana, but we found ourselves at hustings in towns and cities where nearly every family has had a drug related problem or even tragedy within their ranks. Most of them would never challenge the policy publicly but they wouldn't let our view over-ride their own instincts without knowing us and being convinced that we were more likely to have a solution than the police, press and courts. They need to trust us before we can convince them that we know best.

We said we should end the Police Scotland farce, but for most voters a police officer is just a police officer. Their organisation structure is of no interest to voters, what is important to voters is that there are never enough police on the beat. Re-organisation of Police Scotland is of absolutely no importance to them in the polling booth however important it seemed to us.

Free public transport is the final headline policy on the leaflet. But the demographic most likely to vote already travel free on the buses and in poll after poll car owners show no interest in giving up their cars and you really can't sell this policy to the rest of the voters in one line, it's a long term message for after you're trusted, so as a headline policy I'm afraid it wasn't going to be very effective.

All of these policies are excellent and very important in their own right, but they are very important to us, not to the voters. If we are to convince the voters to vote for us we must first address their issues. We had nothing in our headlines about health or hospitals, education or schools, houses or housing or jobs and employment. We focussed on the things that are important to us instead of policies that are important to both us and the voters. Our policies should all have been in the manifesto, but on the leaflets, as headline policies, the ones we chose were absolutely inappropriate.

Before we can get people to believe we are right about our issues we have to let them know we are addressing their issues. We have to be embedded in their lives locally, not only in local campaigns but in their lives. We need to be in community councils, parents' associations, tenants' associations, fighting for them every day where they live. We are already well established in the trade unions and we should expand on that and that should be our model for involvement in other organisations. I don't just mean coming along to save a school here or a park there and hitching our wagon to a local campaign. We need to lead our people. Voters have to believe that we believe in them, working for them all the time and picking up the heavy end when other parties are attending civic receptions and doing everything they can to avoid their own people except at election times. And we should always be recognisably representing the SSP in the community, deeply involved and listening.

The notion of left unity is little more than a pipe dream. If all of the minor left parties were joined in cooperation we would still fall far short of a critical mass in terms of electoral muscle. And for reasons of doctrine or for other reasons some left wing parties wouldn't join with us and some we wouldn't consider joining with. Our future has to lie elsewhere and if we can make a success of it we will become the pole of attraction for the rest of the left, unless they decide that the case for left wing electoral politics is over or carry on dreaming and getting one or two per cent in the polls.

I think there was and is a fundamental flaw in our approach and severely compounded by the novelty of RISE. They had little or no recognition and only when we have done the hard miles will we be able to compete seriously for votes. We will only convince voters that the things that are important to us affect their lives profoundly if they trust us enough to think that we might know better than the media what is important for them in their society, and that the new society we advocate is possible.

That is the challenge for us in the SSP and there are no short cuts.

The Scottish National Party Election Strategy

I must admit to being a bit, well more than a bit really, unsettled by the latest pronouncement from the Scottish National Party that it will allow ineligible candidates to stand under an independence banner with the support of the SNP.  If they want to amend their constitution to allow new celebrity members to stand then that is a matter for them, but if they are to support candidates from other parties who have been prominent in the independence movement and expect them to take the SNP whip then that is a different story.

It is, and has long been my opinion that every voter who supports the aims and ambitions of the Scottish Socialist Party should have the opportunity of going into the polling booth and placing their cross against the Red Star of the SSP in every election where we have a candidate.  No 'ifs' nor 'buts', we should be sailing under our own flag all of the time.  If we fail to gather sufficient support from the electorate despite having the best raft of policies then so be it. It means we must work harder to get our message across. We can't blame the electorate for our own failings.

But the latest plans of the SNP look like a giant step towards a social democratic one-party state within a capitalist framework and I'm not sure that such a one-party state led by the SNP and packed with the great and the good of independence minded celebrities is a price worth paying for our independence.  We should be thinking long and hard before we get our people involved.
 
We were useful in the referendum campaign and I held my tongue because the end was, in my own opinion, great enough to justify the means, but does everyone remember the howls of protest from the SNP when we were excluded from the Smith Commission despite being represented on the Yes campaign board. Neither do I, but if you lie down with dogs then you get up with fleas and we should remember that duplicity for a long time before we get involved in supporting them given their record of failure to support us.

We have our own vision of independence and it doesn't coincide with theirs except at the most basic level.  That is what we should be standing for and campaigning for.  We should not be looking for scraps from the SNP table

The Tories and the Great Pension Release Stunt

I've been thinking long and hard about the release of pension funds that the Tories announced in the budget. It's unlike the Tories to trust working people with large sums of money when they could leave it in the hands of their fat cat cronies in the City to continue to rip us off with fees and charges on money that's locked into their wallets. What, I ask myself, could the motive be ? Well, I'm no Robert Peston but I can tell you what I think.

The Tories are in trouble. Not economic trouble, with the support of the Lib Dems they have the brass neck to screw the poor to bail them out of that. They are in political trouble. One of the problems that all governments face is that the economic cycle lasts for about 8 years, despite Gordon Brown thinking you can abolish boom and bust. That's just the way it is, You can stretch it or shorten it but not by much. But the parliamentary cycle only lasts for 5 years. If you come into government at the wrong time you are in political trouble come the next election.

Osborne came into government at the start of the downturn and 4 years later he has an upturn. Exactly as anyone who knows about these things would have predicted irrespective of any government action. But growth is very weak and the brakes he put on the economy by restricting the incomes of those who have to spend 100 % of their income every week means that consumption, which fuels growth, can't accelerate the economy to the extent that real cost of living issues will have been solved by the next election. Basically the upturn will be too slow for voters to feel better off by the time they go to the polls.

Now if you're a Tory chancellor then you can't just go giving money to poor people who will spend it, so traditionally, to pump up growth by consumption he would resort to fiscal easing, or as it is better known, printing money. But that's been tried and the ailing banks just kept the money to shore up their ailing balance sheets. It didn't make its way into the consumption side of the economy so the effects of the multiplier weren't produced. I suppose I should really try to explain the multiplier but it's complicated. So imagine you have £100 and put down a 10% deposit on a piece of furniture. You can produce £1000 of consumption from £100 of cash. That'll do as an explanation for the moment I think.

In any case, another round of printing money would have a very bad effect on the UK credit rating. It's already under severe threat, so as an option, that would have to be a last resort. So in the pragmatic way that the Tories always adopt in a crisis he has looked around to see who has money he can get his hands on. Releasing the pension handcuffs will produce significant tax revenue in the year of the election but it will have the added, and perhaps more important effect of injecting massive consumption into the economy. The effect on inflation he can brazen out because inflation is starting from a very low base, and a bit of inflation in the system will help consumption as well. People will be more inclined to buy now if they think things will be more expensive in the near future, and it is obvious that a lot of the released pension money will be spent, bringing into play the multiplier. And a lot will go into 'buy-to-let' property fuelling a house price boom and there's nothing like your property value rising to bring UKIP voters back onside. It'll be a price bubble of course, but as we all know, in a price bubble it's only the last fool in the chain who suffers, but it might not burst before the election.

So this act of generosity to workers by the most elitist chancellor in living memory is, as far as I can see, no more than a political stunt to try to get the Tories back into power with a majority government at the next election, and if they have to wreck the pensions industry to do it then so be it. Thatcher did it with the coal industry for the same reasons, but the miners were the enemy. Osborne is so desperate he will do it to his friends. He's in real trouble and his generosity is no more or less than a very destructive election stunt. There were many other better ways to act against the rip off artists of the pension industry, but they wouldn't have been quite so politically expedient.

Douglas Alexander and Hugh Henry (Shuggie and Duggie)

Following the fall from grace of Wendy (second trumpet in the Alexanders' rag time band) Alexander (for it is she), it seems as if Hugh (the hammer) Henry and Douglas (the golden one and future anointed) Alexander are getting some training in for new careers, presumably in anticipation of the result of the next Westminster elections. Shuggie and Duggie have little to commend them to the voters next time round. Shuggie has been virtually invisible, no doubt not wishing to associate himself with the rest of the duds in his party. Duggie, on the other hand seems to have his own personal photographer who follows him around while he is grinning and gripping the hand of anyone who still feels that they want to be seen with the man who reduced our electoral system to Zimbabwean levels. One sycophantic Labour placeman described duggie to me as 'one in a million' and my immediate thought was 'Christ, how unlucky can you get?' Still, at least he and his cronies are on the way out.

I think the bin bag might be filled with pictures of Big Gordy, the big clunking fist.

Gordon Brown, the end is nigh !

You know that when you have lost control and discipline in your party then the end of your leadership is in sight. You also know that when junior ministers call for a leadership election to 'clear the air' you have lost control and discipline in your party. Siobhain McDonagh is only saying what the rest are thinking, but the real question is 'Who Convinced her to fall on her sword and what was she promised in return?'.

New Labour is not so much in meltdown as in self-destruct mode. How long can this lame duck Prime Minister soldier on?

My own opinion is that he will take the country into the next election, whenever that may be, and take the battering that Labour will get, so that the replacement dud will not commence the job with the stench of a massive defeat all over him. His Presyterian upbringing would ask that of him, but we'll see, soon.

Douglas Alexander and the Local Press

Duggie, the golden one and future anointed (I wish he'd resign so I can stop having to type this out all the time) published his regular column in the Paisley Daily Express today, and most congratulatory to the Labour party it was. He didn't, however, mention his part in the elections, only congratulating Wendy (for it is she) Alexander (second trumpet in the Alexanders' rag time band) and Hugh (Shuggie the hammer) Henry among others, on their success.

Perhaps next time he will be able to tell us how he cocked it all up, if he's still there, which he shouldn't be.

The Peoples' Princess and the Election Fiasco

It is good to see in Rayleen (the peoples' princess) Kelly's latest offering that she stands by her previous comments (to which she directs us).

How she can stand by the view which commences with the phrase 'One of the positives of having the Scottish Parliament elections on the same day as the council', when 140,000 people have been dis-enfranchised as a result of that very decision defeats me.

As far as I and many others are concerned there were no positives directly attributable to that decision, and the man responsible, Douglas (Duggie the golden one and future anointed) Alexander should resign if he had any principles or decency. He has robbed the electorate and no amount of delaying tactics, such as appointing a phony inquiry when we all know what went wrong, will allow this to be kicked into the long grass.

Labour should be ashamed, but they have no shame.

Douglas Alexander and the Election Shambles Contd.

So we are to have a Canadian to investigate and find out what went wrong. It will probably cost us hundreds of thousands of pounds to find out that it went wrong because it was a mess from start to finish.

In order to save some money I'll tell them what went wrong.

Postal voting was poorly organised. Ballot papers were designed to be politically expedient to the Labour administration. Little or no help was provided at the polling places, and the staff at the polling places who were appointed to help didn't understand the system themselves. Political parties, well the Nats, tried to capitalise on the confusion by shyster manouvering on the ballot papers. The counting method was not geared up to deal with the sheer volume of spoiled papers it encountered.

Can you not just send me half of the money now that I've told you the result of the Canadian investigation.

The real question is not what went wrong, but what are they going to do about it. We all know what went wrong. Duggie, the golden one and future anointed, should resign immediately and allow someone who is less culpable to examine the problem, because with that amount (140,000?) of spoiled papers, no matter who won they cannot claim legitimacy.

The Day the Music (or at least the Alexanders' Rag Time Band) Died

Reading the comment in the local and the national press it is clear that Labour are stunned by the fact that the people of Renfrewshire decided overwhelmingly that they did not want Labour to be in a position of power in Renfrewshire. They just can't believe that they have lost their divine right to govern the district.

The voters gave Labour the same number of seats that they gave to the Nats, but in their arrogance Labour couldn't get any consensus on the way forward for Renfrewshire (hardly a surprise when they can hardly get agreement within the Labour group).

Perhaps they now regret that they allowed the politics of the area to become mired in personal and spiteful abuse (a la TKMax) and found themselves with no friends to do business with when they needed them.

Gone are the hospitality days of the free bars and functions; they now face years out in the cold after so long being pampered and feted by contractors and others.

I am starting to feel sorry for them, is there no counselling service that can help?

Maybe the new SNP/Lib dem administration could set one up as a kindness.

Douglas Alexander and Downing Street

Immediately following the Fiasco of the Scottish elections I tried to open a petition on the Downing Street e-petitions web site in the following terms : -

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Remove from
office with immediate effect Douglas Alexander MP following the
Scottish Elections fiasco

I deliberately worded this so that it promoted the interests of no particular political party and offered it merely as a plea from the people of Scotland for accountability in Government and for a higher standard of governance.

As we might have expected no criticism of Duggie, the golden one and future anointed, will be allowed on that site and the petition was rejected on the basis that it was 'party political'.

This only goes to underline the vacuous empty imitation of democracy we have in this country. The e-petition site was supposed to be there so as to bring public concerns to the attention of the Prime Minister. It was meant to be participatory democracy in action, but it turns out to be no more than a sham, another piece of Bliar spin which provided a sound bite at the time and little else.

This is not a party political petition, it promotes the views of all parties that we should have a system of democracy where people have a right not only to vote, but to have it counted. Duggie has denied that right to 140,000 citizens. He must go no matter what party he is from.

There is however some good news. There is a petition up and running at

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ScottishVoteScandal2007/

which I urge everyone to sign asap. There is a difficulty with the link, but if you click on 'Sign Petition' and then put 'scottishvote' in the mini search engine you will get to the page.

Sometimes I wish I was more technical, but it always passes.

Douglas Alexander and the Election Shambles Contd.

I see that Duggie the golden one and future anointed is still refusing to resign even although there are 40,000 more reasons than we originally thought. Yes, the figure for spoiled papers is now thought to be 140,000. This guiser has absolutely no shame. He says we need to get answers, but surely the first question we need answered is who was responsible. No doubt some civil servant is getting lined up for the chop even as I write, but, Duggie, you are responsible and that answers the main question. Either the shambles we got was your best shot, in which case you are incompetent, or it wasn't, in which case you are careless. In either case you should not still be in office. You can't investigate what went wrong, because you have a vested interest in making it someone else's fault. Why don't you take advantage of the Bliar resignation and slip out the back door while nobody's looking. You won't be missed for years.

The Greens and the Balance of Power

Following the Scottish election fiasco, which made Florida look intelligent and Zimbabwe look democratic, it appears that the Greens are trying to put together a sort of diddy-coalition with the Lib/ Dems to wield the balance of power in the new Parliament. I think they might be getting ideas well above their station, at least we know we were beaten, but the idea of the Greens in power brings fears to the surface I didn't know I had.

As far as policies went, in the last election they were possibly less envoronmentally aware than we were. They were even using plastic cable ties (perish the thought) rather than proper hairy string (hooray) to put up their posters, and I saw at least one who wasn't wearing brown corduroy trousers. Can we rely on nothing any more?

I'm still tipping Menzies (Ming the merciless) Campbell and Gordon (the big clunking fist) Brown to dash the cup from the lips of Alex (Smirky) Salmond at the last minute, although I am less certain than some days ago

Outstanding Queries: Can Anyone Update Us

I saw an incident on Saturday night which reminded me of why I started to Blog in the first place (see my first post) so I decided to go through the blog and look for the unanswered questions that I will have to chase up via freedom of information since we have lost our MSPs.
So can anyone update us on the following (dates as per my blog) :

8th March Did West Yorkshire Police ever discipline the officers who beat up the young girl

15th March Did Strathclyde Police or Jamieson ever explain or apologise for the police actions

4th April Did anyone from the airlines ever explain how flights could take off with the baggage reconciliation not correct

9th April With the Nats being the biggest party has Sir Sean Connery announced when he is returning to Scotland to take up residence (pay his tax)

24th April Has anyone accepted responsibility for the sewage spillage into the Forth and resigned

25th April Has Tesco made any announcment in respect of its proposals for the Love Street site. I'm getting anxious to know if we were screwed in the election by a lie (but I suppose to say that the people of the area are looking forward to their new supermarket isn't really a lie even if it never arrives), and finally

4th May Has Duggie offered his resignation for the voting system fiasco


Feel free to comment if you can add any enlightenment

The Election Results

This is a painful one to write, but I said that I would comment on our own showing in a later post, so I suppose I can't run away from it. The only caveat I would add is that this is my personal opinion (as is everything else in this blog)
The result for us was dreadful. Our parliamentary base has been wiped out and the Scottish Nationalists with their capitalist puppet masters have become the biggest party. It could hardly be worse.
But it is worse. Some of our failure, as Clairwil comments earlier today, was due to the general squeeze that was felt by all of the smaller parties, which, in their rush to give Labour a good kicking, just supported the most likely boot boys. It would, however, be hypocritical to ignore the mutually assured destruction which Tommy 'tangoman' Sheridan forced the left wing parties into.
He has deprived the people that he purports to represent of a voice of any kind in the Parliament by an act of triumphalist self aggrandisement. Who will speak for the poor and the disenfranchised now. Tangoman has deprived them of a voice and is trying to give them just a mouth. He has become a disgrace to socialism and is now everything a socialist should not be.
He should be ashamed of what he has done to his own people who trusted and believed in him. It is the right of everyone to form a party and to stand in election, but to target your highest profile candidates in places where there is a sitting socialist member is either malicious or just plain crazy. It isn't as if the result was unpredictable, he knew exactly what he was doing when he set out to destroy what he had created for no other reason than that it had survived without him. I repeat--he knew what he was doing because he has been in politics long enough, and every pollster and pundit told him.
There are 100,000 more people disenfranchised today than there were yesterday because of Douglas 'Duggie' Alexander's Westminster imposed voting system and not a solitary damned MSP of the left to represent them .I hope you're proud Tommy.
There is nothing more unseemly than a fall out within the left (Peoples Front for Judea etc) and as my old mum used to say 'The more you stamp on a skitter the further it spreads.' so it is not my intention to make any further comment at all on this, but I will not censor comment. I've given it out, so I'll have to take it. And yes, I am bitter.

Election Day is Here at Last

All of the trekking around the streets is done, now we just have to sit back and watch the votes roll in ;-).

Obviously I only want there to be one winner, but I wish everyone who has been involved in campaigning all the best.

I'll be at a polling station tomorrow so lets keep it friendly, I'm too old for anything else.

Terry Kelly's Conspiracy Theory

I'm not sure what I've done to be characterised by being SSP as one of a 'vicious bunch of thugs' by TKMax, but just to clarify my record, I've never been reported to the police or the standards commission for any offence apart from speeding and that was 30 years ago.

I've never been thrown bodily out of an election count for trying to pick a fight with a political opponent, and just to cap it all, TKMax has never in all of his life spoken to me or to any of my family, and that's a promise, so how can he smear me as if he knew me.

Desperation is a terrible thing, but if he sees me as part of a right wing conspiracy then he has lost it completely.

I note that he has not denied the story about the free entry to the fairground reported on 'Terrywatch', and whether he paid for it or just got it as a favour from a grateful fairground operator (who needs the local council on side to be able to get the prime sites) then it is morally and probably legally suspect.

I look forward to the outcome of any police enquiry.

Smirky and the SNP

I don't often agree with Terry (TKMax) Kelly, and I think I'm going to have to get therapy for it, but I also think it a bit strange that the Scottish Nationalist Party are not standing any candidates in the elections and instead supporting this strange 'Alex Salmond for first minister' splinter group because let's face it, he was not the unanimous choice of his party for leader.

It's insulting to his party because it doesn't mention Scottish, Nationalist, or any other post barring first minister.

It's insulting to the voters to ask them to vote for a slogan rather than a party with a worked out approach to taxation, spending and independence. 100 days, 1 year, 1 term, all have been proposed and sacrificed on the altar of expediency and Smirky's ambition to be a dictator in absence. They have no joined up approach to public policy because they never expected to get this close. Smirky must be crapping himself at the thought that he might have to return from exile , although he will probably offer some excuse about staying on in Westminster until the General Election, at which time he will hand over to the wee lassie to run the show, and stay on in London saying that his job is done because he delivered independence and it is time for others etc. You know , the usual crap. They thought that they only needed one policy, independence, and they are now scrabbling around for a raison d'etre because they are terrified that they might have to put their money where their mouth is.

Linwood for the Linwoodians?

A friend of mine from Linwood has just given me a copy of an election leaflet which he (and I ) thinks is strange.

This woman from the local Lib/ Dems thinks she should have your vote because she has lost 6 stones in weight and lives in Linwood. She believes that people from Paisley, Renfrew and Crosslee might not be able to be trusted. It has overtones of the Wicker Man.
I am impressed by her slogan, 'Vote and regain our community back' (sic), but I think I am more tempted to try to protect her from all of that municipal hospitality that has wrought such havoc on the figures of Terry (TKMax) Kelly and Rayleen (the Peoples' Princess) Kelly.

Scottish Tories (the Blue Ones, not the Tartan Ones)

I've just noticed that in my election update I forgot the Tories. Nothing new there then.

Election Update : Bliar Visits Paisley

My apologies but shift working has meant I've been neglecting the blog.
While I've been away Paisley has had a visit from Bliar and his entourage. You would imagine that, with an election in the offing, he would be keeping a low profile. He is not the asset he once was especially in Scotland. I don't remember seeing his smiling face on any of the candidates' election leaflets, but if I'm wrong no doubt someone will correct me.

Hugh 'Shuggie the Hammer' Henry has apparently decided that, after years of opposing Catholic schools, he is now their champion. My own view will remain my own, but there is a distinct smell of hypocrisy about everything Shuggie does these days.

More shady dealing over Labour election broadcasts with party hacks being drafted in to pose as real people. As if no-one would know that a Scottish Bliar supporter had to be a plant (or some other kind of vegetable).

The smirking fish has been quiet, presumably letting Labour self-destruct.

What else is new, well, the Greens are being green, the Lib/ Dems are being all things to all men, and the Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party are deciding where to exercise grey power. The Scottish Christian Party are hoping for a miracle, Solidarity are furiously promoting the cult of multiple personality and the SSP are fighting to hold the line after a bad year.